Alexey Potapenko or Potap is a famous musician and showman. Pop brought a lot of high-quality pop music and more to the Ukrainian show business. Today, the popular artist runs his own production center MOZGI Entertainment, shoots videos, and hosts large-scale music events. Biography, interesting facts, personal life, and children of Potap – in our material.
His musical creations are heard on the best radio stations in Ukraine, Russia, and the CIS. Very often, Potap is invited to television projects as an excellent presenter, the best music critic, or an expert. However, it was not that fame and success for Alexei Potapenko collapsed like snow on his head: he had a long and thorny path to the life that he now has.
How Potap began his stellar career, how the legendary duet “Potap and Nastya” was created, and what goals the celebrity now has – read the biography.
The childhood of Alexei Potapenko
Alexey Potapenko (stage name – Potap) was born in Kyiv.
He did not even think that he would someday become a singer. His father was a military man, and his mother went in for professional sports – the world champion in relay diving.
Little Aleksey from early childhood got used to discipline and order in everything.
When he was a schoolboy, he studied without triples. He enjoyed his history lessons, but sometimes he had bad behavior and because of this, his parents were often called to the school.
Over time, his mother gave her son the to swim, and he showed excellent abilities. Later he became the captain of the Ukrainian national team.
The beginning of Potap’s musical career
And although Potap was busy with school and sports, at the same time he was fascinated by writing styles and songs. Since their school days, Potap has been fascinated by music. When he was 13 years old, he wrote his first lyrics and his own music. However, in turn, the parents did not take such a passion for their son seriously.
After leaving school, he entered the University of Physical Education and Sports, where, in parallel with his studies, he played in KVN with a team at the university. Then, at the request of his father, in order to have a “more serious profession,” he trained as an economist.
However, having acquired two educations, Potap decided to follow his own path and follow the call of his heart, and not what his parents say. He decided to devote his life to music.
The first group that Potap created was in 1997. However, this group did not perform rap, it was hard rock. And in 2003 he presented a solo album called “On his own wave, or Ano, of course, because he is short.”
“Having gained success, I was afraid of losing it. Later, I realized that music is such a wonderful thing that only the Creator himself, who gave you this talent, can take it away.
– the artist noted earlier.
Then he became famous as a shocking artist.
Duet Potap and Nastya
2006 is a turning point in Potap’s creative career. This year the Potap and Nastya Kamensky group was born. How it all begin?
Alexey, being already a famous singer, decided to record a track with a female voice and began to look for a vocalist. His friend recommended Potap a girl who could sing a duet with him – Nastya Kamensky.
At that time, no one could have imagined that soon it would be a very successful musical project. They performed the song “Without Love”, which immediately became a hit, quickly began to spread to all radio stations, and was the leader of the charts.
Earlier in an interview, Potap talked about meeting Nastya Kamensky.
“She didn’t impress me with her appearance or talent, she seemed like a rustic girl with the wind in her head (laughs). But after the first success of our duet, I realized that it is worth thinking about more than a one-time performance.”
So they started working together. In 2008, their first album, “Not a Couple”, was released, and in 2009, the second album, entitled “Don’t Love My Brains,” saw the light of day. In the same year, the world lit up under the “Crazy Spring”!
With each song, the band became more and more popular, their performances were more in demand. Potap and Nastya climbed the career ladder and reached new heights, each time winning new awards, such as Golden Gramophone, Song of the Year, RU.TV, Muz-TV Prize. Then new tracks were released, no less successful than the previous ones.
It is impossible not to recall their sensational video for the song “Doggy Style”, in which the popular R’n’B singer Bianca also starred.
The duo then went on to record some more infectious tracks. “At Mom”, “I … I”, “Golden Whales”, and so on.
This creative tandem was officially recognized as the most popular of the country’s touring duets. Tours, constant interviews, filming clips – this is the life of artists.
However, in October 2017, Potap and Nastya Kamensky announced that from now on they stop working together and take a creative break. Now Nastya Kamensky has gone solo and performs under the pseudonym NK, and Potap is diligently engaged in producing.
“I have no chance to do anything other than show business: I would still become a solo artist, sing in a duet, trio or group, become a music video maker and write hits. I am firmly convinced that music is my destiny, and I cannot imagine my life without creativity.
the artist is convinced.
Potap – producer
Back in 2010, Potap, together with Irina Gorova, created his own production center “MOZGI Entertainment”, which represents not only the duet “Potap and Nastya”, but also the group “Time and Glass”, artist Arkady Laikin (Potap), the men’s band “Mozgi” Michelle Andrade.
“Currently, MOZGI Entertainment has several divisions: PR department, art department, financial and legal departments, MOZGI Production, and the management department that sells the MOZGI WEAR online store. In total, there are about 20 people in our office who live as a production center every day and go towards common goals. Which year we receive awards as the best management of artists in the country, then MOZGI Entertainment is on the right track.
Potap and TV projects
To date, Potap not only continues to create musical masterpieces but also willingly shares his knowledge with experience. So, in 2015, the artist was invited to be one of the coaches of the 2nd show “Voice. Children”.
Potap liked being a coach, so in the same year he became the coach of the humorous show “League of Laughter”. And also took part in the third season of the project, in 2017.
love affairs
As for the producer’s personal life, the artist carefully concealed it for a long time!
It is known that Alexey Potapenko was married, his ex-wife Irina Gorovaya is a financier and works as a director at the MOZGI Entertainment production center.
For Irina, marriage with Potap is the second, and he had a daughter, Natalya, from her first marriage. In 2008, Irina gave birth to a son, Potap. An interesting fact: in the family of Alexei Potapenko there is one custom to call boys by the names of Alexei or Andrei. The couple decided to name their son Andrei.
However, the happy tandem was not destined to exist for long – in 2014 Potap and Irina Gorovaya divorced. Potap admitted to the press that this decision was not made at one moment and on emotions – this is a deliberate act. Potap said that he and his wife had long had a personal life on the side. But now they continue to work together and have friendly relations.
For a long time, everyone has been saying that Potap and Nastya Kamensky are secretly having an affair and even got married – but they themselves did not comment on such rumors. With each city, the media found more and more evidence of their romance to the delight of fans.
In addition, as we wrote earlier, Nastya began to wear a wedding ring, and all the fans were sure that she and Potap would soon have a wedding. However, since there were no official statements, it remained only a rumor.
However, on the eve of May 23, their wedding day, everything fell into place and the rumors came true. Nastya and Potap are getting married!
“Thank you Potap for protecting us from prying eyes, words, posts. Thank you for supporting my choice that happiness loves silence. Thank you for protecting our love. Even if not for long, we were able to leave the innermost emotions and feelings only for the two of us!”
Nastya wrote on social networks.
And following her lover, with whom they filmed a beautiful and touching video together, she confirmed that on May 23 she was marrying him.
“Now it’s time to share some of our feelings with the fans! Today is a very special and happy day for every couple in love. We are happy to share our happiness with you and are grateful that you share it with us!”
As we previously said, Potap is raising two children with their ex-wife Irina Groove. Natalya Gorova, the daughter from the first marriage of her ex-wife, turned 20 this year, and her own son Andrei is 9.
The famous rapper Potap is a rather busy man and he always has a busy work schedule. But as soon as he appears at home, he devotes all his free time to his son.
Andrey Potapenko is a very creative and active boy and young vlogger. In 2017, he was a co-host at one large-scale event with the famous TV presenter Anatoly Anatolich.
“Andrey is a very talented guy who is comfortable to work with. Despite his age, he already has experience, because he has been behind the scenes since childhood and improvises well,»
– Anatolich talked about his young colleague on the stage.
Do you love Potap? We hope you learned a lot from his biography! Tell us in the comments how Potap won your heart!
